Trading in the Forex Requires Some Caution

Whether it is in the millions or thousands, trading in the Forex is a bit risky. There are a lot of players involved and if you don’t arm yourself properly with knowledge about the Forex you may just get swamped.

The Forex is the largest, most vibrant market in the whole wide world. The financial world has never had a market that involves so much transaction.

Over a trillion dollars worth of different currencies exchange hands everyday. Some lose in the trade, while some hit the jackpot and make tons of money.

The Forex is characterized by its unpredictability and the liquidity because it deals with foreign currencies and each one's value influenced by their own country.

That's why anyone who is greatly considering joining the Forex trade should think twice, thrice and maybe even ten times before doing so. This is not an arena for the weak and nervous.

The Forex is a very complex financial arena and only those with enough knowledge, experience and financial capability can join the foray.

Managing the risk factors is a priority task for those professionals who do this everyday. They direct and manage accounts from their investors, full confidence is placed on them and their client's success is also their success.

Some professional Forex brokers have placed high value on their credibility. The more clients they have, the more they earn as well. They make a profit by eating a slice of their client's profit. If they have made a name for themselves in the Forex trade, they don’t need to go look for clients; the clients will look for them and invest.

There are those, however, who want to manage their own portfolios. A word of caution though -- educate yourself first about the trade.

Learn the ropes and tricks of the game before throwing your hat in the ring. Try to gain access to many self-learn and self-study websites that can impart their knowledge with you.

Try out the website of the Federal Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), there they offer consumer reports as well as articles about applicable laws in Forex trading.

Many Forex management firms maintain a website that offers free online tutorials and brochures. You may need all the educational information about the Forex that you can get your hands on.

They may not outright say it, but the best and the finest and most skilled Forex traders have learned all the secrets of the game. From trading signals technical indicators, and theories that could explain about the market behavior.

How Currencies are Traded in the FOREX Market

Currencies are traded in dollar amounts called “lots”. At 100:1 leverage, one lot is equal to $1000 which controls $100,000 of a given currency. This leverage is known as “margin” and some brokers will allow traders even higher leverage than 100:1. This superhigh leverage is one of the reasons that Forex trading has become so popular.

Currencies are always traded in pairs. Each pair has unique notation that expresses which currencies are being traded.

The symbol for a currency pair will always be in the form ABC/XYZ. ABC/XYZ is not a real currency pair, just an example of how currency pairs are stated in the market. I

n this particular example, ABC is the symbol for one country’s currency and XYZ is the symbol for another country’s currency.

Listed below are some common symbols used. There are symbols for other currencies as well, but these are the most commonly traded ones.

USD - The US Dollar

EUR - The currency of the European Union "EURO"

GBP - The British Pound

JPN - The Japanese Yen

CHF - The Swiss Franc

AUD - The Australian Dollar

CAD - The Canadian Dollar

Are You Calmed and Relaxed When You Trade?

There have been times when I made mistakes under pressure, but I don’t recall ever cracking under pressure. By that I mean I didn't panic, but I have come close. Being short soybeans when Chernobyl blew up was probably the closest. I've made huge errors in conduct - once I sat and lost $45,000 in a matter of minutes because I tried trading while teaching a student at the same time. Lesson learned: Never trade and teach at the same time. Stay focused on one or the other. I once woke up to a margin call of $21,000+, but it turned out in my favor. I had erroneously left a 5-lot in the market overnight - thinking I was flat - the result of sloppy housekeeping.

Nevertheless, I have learned how to make trades in a relaxed, but focused way. I don't put unnecessary pressure on myself. I don’t let myself get stressed out - it’s simply too costly to do that.

I don't believe that I have to be successful on any one trade; I keep my focus on the big picture. I don't believe I need to be right. I don't try to impose my will on the market. And I definitely don't try to predict the future of price movement. The market is the market - it does what it wants to do.

What I do is to closely observe market conditions and movement, and make up a detailed plan of attack. I trade what I see, allowing the market to take me where it wants to go. I make a serious effort to stay calm and relaxed, and ready to act on whatever happens next.

Once I have a trading plan, I follow it. I do not doubt or second-guess my plan. I meditate on my plan and picture myself carrying it out successfully, before I ever enter a trade. I really believe in mental imaging as being an important activity.

I enter and exit trades without worrying about the consequences. Worrying has never helped me to trade well. Worrying is wasted energy. By staying focused, I am able to see trading opportunities more easily, and that allows me to take advantage of the opportunities when they arise.

Trading is a lot like playing sports. Players must stay objective, calm, and not crack under the strain of wanting to be "the

The Advantages of Trading Alone

People sometimes experiment with the idea to trade with other people. It might work, but for me, it did not. I trade alone. The advantages of trading alone are:

You are free to make your own decisions without having to find a way to explain the rationale of your decisions to anybody else. Your time and effort can be focused on what the market is doing and how you react to it, instead of worrying about the psychological and emotional dynamics of a trading group.

You are free to experiment; based on the knowledge you gain from your experiences and your self-education, without having to asking others to allocate a certain portion of the trading funds to let you conduct your experiments.

No one can blame you for their failures. No time is wasted on justifying your actions or feeling guilty about the impact of your trading blunders on someone Else's financial situation.

You alone are responsible and accountable for your own success or failure. You cannot shift the blame to anybody else. It could be disappointing to some knowing that they cannot blame anyone else if they fail. For others, it is very empowering to know that they and they alone, are in charge of their own destiny.

Personally, I believe that a person should trade alone first before he or she decides to trade with other people. This allows the individual to develop his own philosophy and his own understanding about himself and the market. I understand, however, that not everybody can trade alone because it requires a set of beliefs and values to be part of the trader's character. Not all people are created with the same set of characteristics. Not everyone can operate under the solitude of the journey. For example, there are people who need social contact more than others. Individuals, who are social by nature and those who solve problems by talking to other people, may have difficulty undertaking a solitary endeavor